We continue working our way through Lloyd Cline Sears’ The Eyes of Jehovah this week.
Chapter 3, “Living by Faith,” contains a narrative of James A. Harding’s preaching endeavors in the years following the death of his first wife, Carrie, in 1876. By all accounts, his financial situation was dire, requiring him to resume teaching school in order to supplement a meager (to say the least) preaching income. Sometime shortly after Carrie’s death, he entered into an arrangement with a Mr. Hodgkins, “a wealthy banker friend” (Eyes of Jehovah, pg. 36), whereby Hodgkins supported Harding’s work financially. While at first Harding saw this as a boon to his ministry, he gradually came to change his mind:
“Numbers of times I went to him for money and he always let me have it with pleasure. But after a while my mind was especially attracted to the verses in the Philippian letter: ‘In nothing be anxious; but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God…And my God shall supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.’
“So I resolved that I would not go to him any more for money, and I never did. Sometimes the temptation to do so was very great, but I did not yield to it; and I got along just as well, met every obligation just as promptly, and had the consolation of knowing that I was trusting in God and not in man.
“Some time afterward this brother said to me, ‘How is it that you do not come to me any more for money?’ I explained to him the reason–that I had been trusting to man rather than to God and that henceforth I expected to go to the Lord with my wants, and look to him for what I might need.”
Eyes of Jehovah, pg. 37
In this, we see the seeds of Harding’s understanding of “special providence.” (For the purposes of this Note, I’ll not elaborate further where others have covered the subject fully.) But what is sometimes missed is that Harding’s opposition to the missionary society grew out of his understanding of special providence. Sears elaborates:
“To permit financial considerations to interfere with his freedom, to Harding was unthinkable, and this was his first objection to the Christian Missionary Society which had been recently organized [in Kentucky], as its sponsors claimed, partly to give ministers financial security.
“‘When I was a young preacher,’ Harding said later, ‘and when my understanding of the missionary society was much less clear than it is now, I refused the best offer financially I have ever had in my life, an offer to work for the Kentucky Christian Missionary Society, because to accept it would be to curtail the liberty I had in Christ. At first it was proposed to me to work in a certain district in the state; and when I demurred, I was given the liberty to preach anywhere I pleased in the State. But I wanted the liberty to preach anywhere in the world where I could do the most good, in any place in which God in his providence might call me. I was accustomed to pray to God to lead me daily where I could do the most good. I was unwilling to give up the liberty to pray thus, and refused the offer. God is the only competent guide and supporter of those who work for him… He knows exactly what each of us needs, concerning which all men are more or less ignorant.
“….The offers of the Missionary Society were refused, he said, because the Society expected to direct his work. ‘For my part, I had rather look to the Father for support and trust him to direct the work.'”
Eyes of Jehovah, pp. 38-39
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John T. Lewis was a student of Harding’s at the Nashville Bible School in the years between 1898 and 1901: “When I listened to one of Brother J. A. Harding’s lectures…he could make a speech. I’ve come out of that old chapel many a time inspired to go out and convert the world.” Commenting on the very first protracted meeting he ever held (east of Woodbury, Tenn., in August 1902), Lewis remarked, “I caught the Harding idea, and it was one of my most successful endeavors.”
In the interest of brevity, I will leave it there. More can be said, though. Harding’s understanding of special providence and its effect on how he viewed the missionary society can be transposed, several decades later, to Lewis’s understanding of the proper relationship between the church and parachurch organizations and institutions. Until next time.
Anastasis 